PDF Bookmarks?

I’m trying to add bookmarks to a PDF in DTPO 2.8.8. I saw lots of really old posts for this to be a feature request, so I assume the functionality is there. I just can’t seem to find out how to do it. Nothing in the help and nothing obvious in the menus. Thanks for suggestions!

Sorry, no (and believe it or not, it’s rarely ever requested).

Here is my use case, maybe you can suggest a way to accomplish this. I have a PDF that I want to read in DT. It is long and will take me many days to get through it. If I close the PDF viewer or DT entirely, the place I stopped reading is lost. I would like a way to keep at least one place marker so that I can go back and easily pick up where I left off.

There is a script for this, that I use occasionally. Creates a pdf bookmark in a smart folder, or somesuch. Will have a looksie when back at the Mac - unless someone beats me to it.

That’s strange as the PDF should open to the page you were on. I just opened one, went to page 183 and quit DEVONthink. When I relaunched DTPO, the PDF was there, still on page 183.

What version / edition of DEVONthink and OS are you running?

That works this side too - but I guess OP wants multiple(?) bookmarks within the document?

Alternatively, if I’m not mistaken, you need to actively “click” on the page in the PDF that you are at, for DTPO to open it there again in the future.

If you open the PDF on (e.g.) page 3, and then use the trackpad to scroll and scroll, doing all your reading as you go along, and ‘stop’ on page 23 - if you never ‘did’ anything apart from scrolling, then I think DTPO (correctly) will open that PDF on page 3 again, the next time you read it.

That indeed does work. Not very robust, but I think it might do.

Multiple would be nice, but just one is good enough. I got very used the functionality provided by iBooks

Scrolling seems to get registered properly. I scrolled (flicked) with my Magic Mouse all the way to the end then closed the PDF. It opened back up to the last page. Yay!

Great!

As mentioned, I do have a PDF bookmark script. Not my own work, but downloaded off the forum a few years back. Opened it now, and no authors details are provided. Also did a search, but can only find a post from me referencing the fact that I managed to find the Script earlier… :blush:

So, figured I can pop it up here again?

Apologies to whoever this might have been from (thank you!), had I been able to find it, I would have pointed you out! [I now make a point of saving the URL of wherever I find the script in the Comment/Note section of the editor, to avoid the above!]

tell application "DEVONthink Pro"
	set nameCurrentPDF to name of content record of window 1
	--for removing the extension
	set charFullStop to character -4 of nameCurrentPDF
	if charFullStop is "." then set nameCurrentPDF to characters 1 thru -5 of nameCurrentPDF as text
	set DEVONthinkPageNum to current page of window 1
	set realCurrentPageNum to DEVONthinkPageNum + 1
	set DEVONthinkPage to DEVONthinkPageNum as text
	set realCurrentPage to realCurrentPageNum as text
	set fileLink to the reference URL of content record of window 1
	create record with {type:bookmark, name:nameCurrentPDF & " - p. " & realCurrentPage, URL:fileLink & "?page=" & DEVONthinkPage} in display group selector
end tell

I have it saved in my Toolbar. Click on the page in the PDF, run the script - it prompts you to select where you want the RTF to be stored, and done. Going back and clicking on it, takes you back to the bookmarked PDF (to the exact page that you were on when you fired the script) and you can do this multiple times per PDF.

Not quite the iBooks experience, but certainly works!

This seems to be exactly what you asked for. Can you give details on the “not very robust”?

To quickly get you back to this particular document from anywhere on your Mac: I always keep a collapsed sticky note in the upper right corner of the desktop. I can then quickly use “copy page link” in the DT contextual menu in a pdf, and paste that link into the sticky note, and can resume any time with one click. Less formal and organized than Cassady’s script, but very quick and simple and accessible from outside DT.

I guess I’m just used to iBooks, being able to set bookmarks with a single click or tap. I think iBooks still seems to be the best option, as I read a single PDF on many different devices. I am glad to find that the single-machine PDF does retain its last opened location :slight_smile:

Here’s another one who would very much like to have this function available in DT’s PDF-viewer.
Just for your info… :wink:
Thanks for considering this as a new feature.

We are always listening. :smiley:

Oh woe… Had downloaded the trial version to help work on writing a book, to find so many useful features, but this one missing - vital for me, and perhaps others who have tried the software but moved on to try alternatives.
It’s so puzzling. Preview offers a way of displaying bookmarks along with highlights and annotations in the sidebar. These are essential to navigating and organising book-length PDFs (scanned in or from Google Books or the Internet Archive). Can’t understand why DT is hobbled in this way.
So, unfortunately, will have to uninstall.

DEVONthink offers a lot more functionality than this feature.

PDF Bookmarks are not a standardized thing. For example, you can’t use Preview Bookmarks in any other application. Bookmarks are not something that has been requested often (even rarely). Also, the aforementioned mechanisms of creating links to pages in PDFs seems to have been more than sufficient for people.

Cheers!

I think BenyaDee is confusing the ‘table of contents’ with ‘bookmarks’. Table of contents are standard (and confusingly are called bookmarks in Acrobat) but Preview’s bookmarks are not.

I agree that a way to display a PDF’s table of contents would be useful in DT but with those kind of book length pdfs I open them in preview.

In fact the various techniques for creating bookmarks, such as the one Cassady demonstrated, are much more flexible and powerful for creating ones own reference links. They are however not very beginner friendly and their power is easily overlooked.

I definitely would advise BenyaDee to spend a little bit more time with Devonthink.

Frederiko

If I am reading a long document and want to be able to find my way through it again, I usually create a rtf with the relevant page links and a description of what’s there—almost like my own roadmap to the text.

@lande80: :smiley: